The Young Hornblower Omnibus

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Parry withdrew then, ushered out by his flag lieutenant who had been one of the whist four, with all the dignity and pomp that might be expected of a peer, an admiral, and a commissioner, and he left Hornblower grinning at Bush.

  “D’you think it’s time for us to dine too?” he asked.

  “I think so,” said Bush.

  The eating house in Broad Street was run, as might almost have been expected, by a wooden-legged sailor. He had a pert son to assist him, who stood by when they sat at a scrubbed oaken table on oak benches, their feet in the sawdust, and ordered their dinner.

  “Ale?” asked the boy.

  “No. No ale,” said Hornblower.

  The pert boy’s manner gave some indication of what he thought about gentlemen of the navy who ate the fourpenny ordinary and drank nothing with it. He dumped the loaded plates in front of them: boiled mutton—not very much mutton—potatoes and carrots and parsnips and barley and a dab of pease pudding, all swimming in pale gravy.

  “It keeps away hunger,” said Hornblower.

  It might indeed do that, but apparently Hornblower had not kept hunger away lately. He began to eat his food with elaborate unconcern, but with each mouthful his appetite increased and his restraint decreased. In an extraordinarily short time his plate was empty; he mopped it clean with his bread and ate the bread. Bush was not a slow eater, but he was taken a little aback when he looked up and saw that Hornblower had finished every mouthful while his own plate was still half full. Hornblower laughed nervously.

  “Eating alone gives one bad habits,” he said—and the best proof of his embarrassment was the lameness of his explanation.

  He was aware of that, as soon as he had spoken, and he tried to carry it off by leaning back on his bench in a superior fashion; and to show how much at ease he was he thrust his hands into the side pockets of his coat. As he did so his whole expression changed. He lost some of the little colour there was in his cheeks. There was utter consternation in his expression—there was even fear. Bush took instant alarm; he thought Hornblower must have had a seizure, and it was only after that first thought that he connected Hornblower’s changed appearance with his gesture of putting his hands in his pockets. But a man who had found a snake in his pocket would hardly wear that look of horror.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Bush. “What in God’s name—?”

  Hornblower slowly drew his right hand out of his pocket. He kept it closed for a moment round what it held, and then he opened it, slowly, reluctantly, like a man fearful of his destiny. Harmless enough; it was a silver coin—a half-crown.

  “That’s nothing to take on about,” said Bush, quite puzzled. “I wouldn’t even mind finding a half-crown in my pocket.”

  “But—but—” stammered Hornblower, and Bush began to realize some of the implications.

  “It wasn’t there this morning,” said Hornblower, and then he smiled the old bitter smile. “I know too well what money I have in my pockets.”

  “I suppose you do,” agreed Bush; but even now, with his mind going back through the events of the morning, and making the obvious deductions, he could not understand quite why Hornblower should be so worried. “That wench put it there?”

  “Yes. Maria.” said Hornblower. “It must have been her. That’s why she took my coat to sponge it.”

  “She’s a good soul,” said Bush.

  “Oh God!” said Hornblower. “But I can’t—I can’t—”

  “Why not?” asked Bush, and he really thought that question unanswerable.

  “No,” said Hornblower. “It’s—it’s—I wish she hadn’t done it. The poor girl—”

  “ ‘Poor girl’ be blowed!” said Bush. “She’s only trying to do you a good turn.”

  Hornblower looked at him for a long time without speaking, and then he made a little hopeless gesture, as though despairing of ever making Bush see the matter from his point of view.

  “You can look like that if you like,” said Bush, steadily, determined to stick to his guns, “but there’s no need to act as if the French had landed just because a girl slips half a crown into your pocket.”

  “But don’t you see—” began Hornblower, and then he finally abandoned all attempt at explanation. Under Bush’s puzzled gaze he mastered himself. The unhappiness left his face, and he assumed his old inscrutable look—it was as if he had shut down the vizor of a helmet over his face.

  “Very well,” he said. “We’ll make the most of it, by God!”

  Then he rapped on the table.

  “Boy!”

  “Yessir.”

  “We’ll have a pint of wine. Let someone run and fetch it at once. A pint of wine—port wine.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And what’s the pudding today?”

  “Currant duff, sir.”

  “Good. We’ll have some. Both of us. And let’s have a saucer of jam to spread on it.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And we’ll need cheese before our wine. Is there any cheese in the house, or must you send out for some?”

  “There’s some in the house, sir.”

  “Then put it on the table.”

  “Yessir.”

  Now was it not, thought Bush, exactly what might be expected of Hornblower that he should push away the half of his huge slice of currant duff unfinished? And he only had a nibble of cheese, hardly enough to clear his palate. He raised his glass, and Bush followed his example.

  “To a lovely lady,” said Hornblower.

  They drank, and now there was an irresponsible twinkle in Hornblower’s eyes that worried Bush even while he told himself that he was tired of Hornblower’s tantrums. He decided to change the subject, and he prided himself on the tactful way in which he did so.

  “To a fortunate evening,” he said, raising his glass in his turn.

  “A timely toast,” said Hornblower.

  “You can afford to play?” asked Bush.

  “Naturally.”

  “You can stand another run of bad luck?”

  “I can afford to lose one rubber,” answered Hornblower.

  “Oh.”

  “But on the other hand if I win the first I can afford to lose the next two. And if I win the first and second I can afford to lose the next three. And so on.”

  “Oh.”

  That did not sound too hopeful; and Hornblower’s gleaming eyes looking at him from his wooden countenance were positively disturbing. Bush shifted uneasily in his seat and changed the conversation again.

  “They’re putting the Hastings into commission again,” he said. “Had you heard?”

  “Yes. Peacetime establishment—three lieutenants, and all three selected two months back.”

  “I was afraid that was so.”

  “But our chance will come,” said Hornblower. “Here’s to it.”

  “D’you think Parry will bring Lambert to the Long Rooms?” asked Bush when he took the glass from his lips.

  “I have no doubt about it,” said Hornblower.

  Now he was restless again.

  “I must be back there soon,” he said. “Parry might hurry Lambert through his dinner.”

  “My guess is that he would,” said Bush, preparing to rise.

  “There’s no necessity for you to come back with me if you don’t care to,” said Hornblower. “You might find it wearisome to sit idle there.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for worlds,” said Bush.

  xx

  The Long Rooms were full with the evening crowd. At nearly every table in the outer room there were earnest parties playing serious games, while through the curtained door that opened into the inner room came a continuous murmur that indicated that play in there was exciting and noisy. But for Bush standing restlessly by the fire, occasionally exchanging absent-minded remarks with the people who came and went, there was only one point of interest, and that was the candle-lit table near the wall where Hornblower was playing in very exalted so
ciety. His companions were the two admirals and a colonel of infantry, the latter a bulky man with a face almost as red as his coat, whom Parry had brought with him along with Admiral Lambert. The flag lieutenant who had previously partnered Parry was now relegated to the role of onlooker, and stood beside Bush, and occasionally made incomprehensible remarks about the play. The Marquis had looked in more than once. Bush had observed his glance to rest upon the table with something of approval. No matter if there were others who wanted to play; no matter if the rules of the room gave any visitor the right to join a table at the conclusion of a rubber; a party that included two flag officers and a field officer could do as it pleased.

  Hornblower had won the first rubber to Bush’s enormous relief, although actually he had not been able to follow the details of the play and the score well enough to know that such was the case until the cards were swept up and payments made. He saw Hornblower tuck away some money into that breast pocket.

  “It would be pleasant,” said Admiral Parry, “if we could restore the old currency, would it not? If the country could dispense with these dirty notes and go back again to our good old golden guineas?”

  “Indeed it would,” said the colonel.

  “The longshore sharks,” said Lambert, “meet every ship that comes in from abroad. Twenty-three and sixpence they offer for every guinea, so you can be sure they are worth more than that.”

  Parry took something from his pocket and laid it on the table.

  “Boney has restored the French currency, you see,” he said. “They call this a napoleon, now that he is First Consul for life. A twenty-franc piece—a louis d’or, as we used to say.”

  “Napoleon, First Consul,” said the colonel, looking at the coin with curiosity, and then he turned it over. “French Republic.”

  “The ‘republic’ is mere hypocrisy, of course,” said Parry. “There never was a worse tyranny since the days of Nero.”

  “We’ll show him up,” said Lambert.

  “Amen to that,” said Parry, and then he put the coin away again. “But we are delaying the business of the evening. I fear that is my fault. Let us cut again. Ah, I partner you this time, Colonel. Would you care to sit opposite me? I omitted to thank you, Mr. Hornblower, for your excellent partnership.”

  “You are too kind, my lord,” said Hornblower, taking the chair at the admiral’s right.

  The next rubber began and progressed silently to its close.

  “I am glad to see that the cards have decided to be kind to you, Mr. Hornblower,” said Parry, “even though our honours have reduced your winnings. Fifteen shillings, I believe?”

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower, taking the money.

  Bush remembered what Hornblower had said about being able to afford to lose three rubbers if he won the first two.

  “Damned small stakes in my opinion, my lord,” said the colonel. “Must we play as low as this?”

  “That is for the company to decide,” replied Parry. “I myself have no objection. Half a crown instead of a shilling? Let us ask Mr. Hornblower.”

  Bush turned to look at Hornblower with renewed anxiety.

  “As you will, my lord,” said Hornblower, with the most elaborate indifference.

  “Sir Richard?”

  “I don’t mind at all,” said Lambert.

  “Half a crown a trick, then,” said Parry. “Waiter, fresh cards, if you please.”

  Bush had hurriedly to revise his estimate of the amount of losses Hornblower could endure. With the stakes nearly trebled it would be bad if he lost a single rubber.

  “You and I again, Mr. Hornblower,” said Parry, observing the cut. “You wish to retain your present seat?”

  “I am indifferent, my lord.”

  “I am not,” said Parry. “Nor am I yet so old as to decline to change my seat in accordance with the run of the cards. Our philosophers have not yet decided that it is a mere vulgar superstition.”

  He heaved himself out of his chair and moved opposite Hornblower, and play began again, with Bush watching more anxiously even than at the start. He watched each side in turn take the odd trick, and then three times running he saw Hornblower lay the majority of tricks in front of him. During the next couple of hands he lost count of the score, but finally he was relieved to see only two tricks before the colonel when the rubber ended.

  “Excellent,” said Parry, “a profitable rubber, Mr. Hornblower. I’m glad you decided to trump my knave of hearts. It must have been a difficult decision for you, but it was undoubtedly the right one.”

  “It deprived me of a lead I could well have used,” said Lambert. “The opposition was indeed formidable, Colonel.”

  “Yes,” agreed the colonel, not quite as good-temperedly. “And twice I held hands with neither an ace nor a king, which helped the opposition to be formidable. Can you give me change, Mr. Hornblower?”

  There was a five pound note among the money that the colonel handed over to Hornblower, and it went into the breast pocket of his coat.

  “At least, Colonel,” said Parry, when they cut again, “you have Mr. Hornblower as your partner this time.”

  As the rubber proceeded Bush was aware that the flag-lieutenant beside him was watching with greater and greater interest.

  “By the odd trick, by George!” said he when the last cards were played.

  “That was a close shave, partner,” said the colonel, his good humour clearly restored. “I hoped you held that queen, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  “Fortune was with us, sir,” said Hornblower.

  The flag lieutenant glanced at Bush; it seemed as if the flag lieutenant was of opinion that the colonel should have been in no doubt, from the previous play, that Hornblower held the queen. Now that Bush’s attention was drawn to it, he decided that Hornblower must have thought just the same—the slightest inflection in his voice implied it—but was sensibly not saying so.

  “I lose a rubber at five pounds ten and win one at fifteen shillings,” said the colonel, receiving his winnings from Lambert. “Who’d like to increase the stakes again?”

  To the credit of the two admirals they both glanced at Hornblower without replying.

  “As you gentlemen wish,” said Hornblower.

  “In that case I’m quite agreeable,” said Parry.

  “Five shillings a trick then,” said the colonel. “That makes the game worth playing.”

  “The game is always worth playing,” protested Parry.

  “Of course, my lord,” said the colonel, but without suggesting that they should revert to the previous stakes.

  Now the stakes were really serious; by Bush’s calculation a really disastrous rubber might cost Hornblower twenty pounds, and his further calculation told him that Hornblower could hardly have more than twenty pounds tucked away in his breast pocket. It was a relief to him when Hornblower and Lambert won the next rubber easily.

  “This is a most enjoyable evening,” said Lambert, and he smiled with a glance down at the fistful of the colonel’s money he was holding; “nor am I referring to any monetary gains.”

  “Instructive as well as amusing,” said Parry, paying out to Hornblower.

  Play proceeded, silently as ever, the silence only broken by the brief interchanges of remarks between rubbers. Now that he could afford it, fortunately, Hornblower lost a rubber, but it was a cheap one, and he immediately won another profitable one. His gains mounted steadily with hardly a setback. It was growing late, and Bush was feeling weary, but the players showed few signs of fatigue, and the flag lieutenant stayed on with the limitless patience he must have acquired during his present appointment, philosophic and fatalistic since he could not possibly do anything to accelerate his admiral’s decision to go to bed. The other players drifted away from the room; later still the curtained door opened and the gamblers from the inner room came streaming out, some noisy, some silent, and the Marquis made his appearance, silent and unruffled, to watch the final rubbers with unobtrusive interest, se
eing to it that the candles were snuffed and fresh ones brought, and new cards ready on demand. It was Parry who first glanced at the clock.

  “Half-past three,” he said. “Perhaps you gentlemen—?”

  “Too late to go to bed now, my lord,” said the colonel. “Sir Richard and I have to be up early, as you know.”

  “My orders are all given,” said Lambert.

  “So are mine,” said the colonel.

  Bush was stupid with long late hours spent in a stuffy atmosphere, but he thought he noticed an admonitory glance from Parry, directed at the two speakers. He wondered idly what orders Lambert and the colonel would have given, and still more idly why they should be orders that Parry did not wish to be mentioned. There seemed to be just the slightest trace of hurry, just the slightest hint of a desire to change the subject, in Parry’s manner when he spoke.

  “Very well, then, we can play another rubber, if Mr. Hornblower has no objection?”

  “None at all, my lord.”

  Hornblower was imperturbable; if he had noticed anything remarkable about the recent interchange he gave no sign of it. Probably he was weary, though—Bush was led to suspect that by his very imperturbability. Bush knew by now that Hornblower worked as hard to conceal his human weaknesses as some men worked to conceal ignoble birth.

  Hornblower had the colonel as partner, and no one could be in the room without being aware that this final rubber was being played in an atmosphere of even fiercer competition than its predecessors. Not a word was spoken between the hands; the score was marked, the tricks swept up, the other pack proffered and cut in deadly silence. Each hand was desperately close, too. In nearly every case it was only a single trick that divided the victors and the vanquished, so that the rubber dragged on and on with painful slowness. Then a hand finished amid a climax of tension. The flag lieutenant and the Marquis had kept count of the score, and when Lambert took the last trick they uttered audible sighs, and the colonel was so moved that he broke the silence at last.

  “Neck and neck, by God!” he said. “This next hand must settle it.”

  But he was properly rebuked by the stony silence with which his remark was received. Parry merely took the cards from the colonel’s right side and passed them over to Hornblower to cut. Then Parry dealt, and turned up the king of diamonds as trump, and the colonel led. Trick succeeded trick. For a space, after losing a single trick, Lambert and Parry carried all before them. Six tricks lay before Parry, and only one before Hornblower. The colonel’s remark about being neck and neck was fresh in Bush’s ears. One more trick out of the next six would give the rubber to the two admirals. Five to one was long odds, and Bush uncomfortably resigned himself to his friend losing this final rubber. Then the colonel took a trick and the game was still alive. Hornblower took the next trick, so that there was still hope. Hornblower led the ace of diamonds, and before it could be played to he laid down his other three cards to claim the rest of the tricks; the queen and knave of diamonds lay conspicuously on the table.